Tom Salinsky

Four more Best Picture nominees under my belt since I last posted. Here are my capsule reviews in the order of my viewing…

Winter’s Bone
A film which entirely passed me by until it suddenly started showing up at the top of critics’ top ten lists at the end of 2010, this is based on a novel which I was equally unfamiliar with. It’s the simple story, almost thin, of a young woman in the Ozark Mountains, living in fairly desperate poverty and struggling to raise her younger brother and sister. As the movie opens, her meth-cooking father has skipped bail and if she cannot present him at the courthouse (alive or dead) she will forfeit the shack which is the only home she has. The rest of the movie is her struggle to find him, while most in the community would rather she left well enough alone. Cold, spare and featuring strong performances from Jennifer Lawrence and John Hawkes (both nominated), this benefits hugely from the novelty of the environment and for telling its potentially melodramatic story in an admirably simple way. But just as this approach avoids undue hysteria, it also means that the film as a whole feels like it never quite gets cooking. Add a couple of (presumably deliberate) loose ends, and the impression I get is of a slight lack of conviction, although I was entirely gripped while it was on.

The Kids Are All Right
When this was over, my first thought was “was that really one of the ten best films of 2010?”. And I guess the answer is it probably was one of the best soapy family melodramas of 2010, but I think a movie of that type probably has to do a little more to earn a Best Picture Nomination – such is the “inflation” caused by nominating ten films instead of five; this film would never have got a nomination two years ago. Not that there’s much wrong with. The “two moms” scenario is treated in a suitably matter-of-fact fashion, Julianne Moore is very good (as usual), Annette Bening is not quite as good (as usual), the kids are neither too wooden nor too winsome, Mark Ruffalo is on good form, and the story is well put-together. But once it gets going, its entirely unsurprising, with the plot unfolding in the most straightforward and obvious way possible. But where Winter’s Bone has the novelty of its setting and the urgency of its situation to elevate it, the slender storyline is a much bigger problem in this generally rather cosy, familiar setting. While the sober treatment of its lesbian lead characters is admirable, I can’t help thinking that their presence has earned this movie brownie points which it doesn’t really deserve.

127 Hours
In  his very entertaining book, Which Lie Did I Tell, William Goldman recounts one of the (many) reasons why the movie he wrote about killer lions, The Ghost and the Darkness is fatally compromised. In the true story, the white hunter waits up a tree for days, gun in hand, for the moment that his prey finally presents himself. Goldman is simultaneously in awe at this man’s courage and fortitude, but despairs that this waiting game is entirely uncinematic. But Goldman is a talented hack and Danny Boyle is a genuis, for Boyle has made that film and it’s a triumph. Anyone else would have delayed the moment when Ralston is trapped in the canyon or included frequent cut-aways and flashbacks (as Ralston himself did in the book he wrote about his ordeal) in order to have something to shoot and some structure for the narrative. Boyle and co-writer Simon Beaufoy, spend less than 15 minutes with Ralston unencumbered before the terrible accident occurs which leaves him a prisoner for five days. For most of its running time, therefore, this is Boyle’s camera and James Franco’s face and very little else, but the ordeal is brilliantly realised. As Ralston goes through disbelief, resignation, fear, determination, self-mockery, hallucination and finally auto-amputation to free himself, Boyle and Franco bring it all vividly to life. Just as a “heavy” director like David Fincher was the right choice to add power and weight to the otherwise trivial Mark Zuckerburg story, so it needed a “light” director like Boyle to nimbly add zip and fizz and kinetic drive to this entirely static storyline. Little moments of irony are handled with grace and aplomb – Ralston leaving behind his Swiss Army Knife, Boyle’s camera favouring Franco’s right arm as he shakes hands with two cute hikers before his accident, the battery on his camcorder slowly draining away – and the final redemptive scenes are meaningful without being corny or melodramatic. Ralston isn’t a different person after his ordeal, he’s just come to see a bit more clearly who he is and what living a life means. Yes, the amputation is hard to watch (and listen to – the sound effects are the worst part) but looking away would hardly be the point. This is a masterclass in movie-making and probably my favourite film of the year. It’s a crime Danny Boyle isn’t nominated for Best Director, but having won two years ago for Slumdog I imagine he’s not too bothered.

True Grit
Another inhospitable environment film, this one set in the old west. I’m a big Coen Brothers fan, but not a big western fan, so I read the Charles Portis novel and watched the John Wayne film in preparation for this one. Comparing the two earlier works, it’s very easy to see that the novel is about Mattie Ross, the young girl who hires a US Marshal to bring her father’s killer to justice. The Henry Hathaway movie is about the legend that his John Wayne, however, and so dispenses with the narration from the older Mattie as well as providing a suitably valedictory ending which also left the door open for a sequel. The Coens restore Mattie’s narration and the book’s more downbeat ending, but in many other ways this is a less faithful version of the novel, restructuring Mattie’s business deals both with the man who sold her father his horses and with Marshal Rooster Cogburn himself, and removing Texas Ranger La Boeuf (Matt Damon) from much of the action, where both book and Wayne movie have the three protagonists as a team for most of the middle of the movie. However, in its staging and performances, the new movie generally improves on the old – better paced, more textured, free of the Coen’s excesses, but full of their care and attention to detail, it’s a very, very solid piece of work. Hailee Steinfeld improves in almost every way on Kim Darby’s version of Mattie Ross, as does Matt Damon on singer Glen Campbell’s version of La Boeuf even though the character is somewhat sidelined. And if Jeff Bridges isn’t quite the legend that Duke Wayne was, he certainly brings his character acting chops with him – somehow managing to look even older and fatter that Wayne, despite being two years younger (he was 60 when he shot it, but the novel describes a 40 year old man, not in good shape, admittedly). A very, very good movie, then rather than an extraordinary one, and if not quite up there with Fargo or Lebowski, certainly in the top half of the Coen canon.

d. Darren Aronofsky; w. Mark Heyman, Andres Heinz, John McLaughlin (story Heinz)
Natalie Portman, Natalie Portman, Vincent Cassel, Mila Kunis

NB: This review contains spoilers. If you don’t want to know, don’t read.

This is the first Darren Aronofsky film I’ve seen, but I’m aware of his reputation as an uncompromising director of sometimes-baffling dramas and this movie, very well received by British and American critics, certainly lives up to that reputation. Natalie Portman stars – by which I mean that she’s hardly ever off the screen – as Nina, a dedicated ballerina given the chance to dance the lead in Swan Lake. She has the technique and the grace to play the vulnerable white swan, but her director (Vincent Cassel) doubts that she has the dark power required for the duel-role of the black swan.

Both in casting and on the page, it’s Vincent Cassel’s Thomas Leroy who is the weak link here. His part of the story is overfamiliar – the prickish cocksman of a director who dominates a vulnerable young would-be star, alternately encouraging her and confounding her until she either cracks or delivers the performance of a lifetime. Cassell makes little headway with this limited part, which also requires him to dole out thudding exposition, but just when one might expect his villainy to ramp up, he withdraws and other candidates come to the fore as potential antagonists.

One is Mila Kunis, in a lively turn as a looser, less dedicated but funkier rival who ends up being cast as Portman’s understudy. The other is a Barbara Hershey, channelling Bette Davis as Portman’s mother, whose own ballet career failed to live up to expectations and who alternates pride, concern and envy in a very well-observed fashion. And let’s also raise a glass to Winona Ryder as the retiring ballet star, pleasingly bitter and lush in what is essentially a cameo role.

However, the real antagonist here is none of the above. Instead the role is fulfilled by Portman’s own fragile psyche, brought vividly to life by a hugely energised combination of jump-cutting, fractured soundscape and brilliantly-realised CGI. It’s this playing with reality which elevates the movie above its over-familiar backstage status-battle storyline. Although there are some quirky hints early on, from the middle of the movie, neither the viewer nor the protagonist can trust the reality of anything they see, and Aronofsky expertly builds the tension and confusion, almost to the end. From an objective standpoint, the stakes here are relatively low (will some girl dance quite well or very well?), but the entire film is designed so that we only never get that objectivity and see the world from Portman’s own increasingly-unreliable point-of-view.

At the centre of this increasingly demented maelstrom, then, is Portman herself. Aronofsky’s camera rarely leaves her – when it isn’t fetishizing her feet and her shoe-preparation routine, it’s crawling over her skin as she wounds herself, or as feathers apparently sprout from her flesh. When it isn’t hovering in front of her, it’s creeping behind her, or watching her reflection in one of the countless mirrors or other reflective surfaces which litter the film, and which make for some of its creepiest effects sequences. On the rare occasions when she isn’t filling the frame, we are generally looking out through her eyes – and sometimes both at the same time. Portman’s gaunt yet luminous beauty shines through the grainy photography, and her slightly Spock-like eyebrows mean she can transform effortlessly into Satanic counterpart without the viewer being entirely aware of what has changed.

In its bravura penultimate sequence, reminiscent of Terry Gilliam’s Brazil, the constant rug-pulling and demented energy becomes a little offputting and the whole thing threatens to tip into absurdity. And the final supposed revelation that to give such a “perfect” performance, Portman’s character has had to re-enact the plot of Swan Lake, right down to that self-destructive ending, is a little too pat, for what is otherwise such a breezily off-kilter fillm. But almost all of what goes before is fresh, disturbing, engaging and surprising.

Far too offputting for the Academy to do much more than nominate it, Aronofsky’s film is a complex mix of pulp melodrama, high art and character study. If you’ve been waiting all year for a nightmare psycho-horror fantasy film en pointe, then your wait is over, but this effort is very good rather than perfection.

It’s Oscar time again, which means that I’ve been moreorless keeping up this blog for a whole year. Well done to me.

It also means that I intend to duplicate my 2010 efforts and see all ten (why ten!?) Best Picture nominees before the ceremony on 27 February (and I’m away next week). In fact, I never did get around to seeing the very dreary-looking Sandra Bullock, Friday Night Lights-inspired The Blind Side (it’s still on my hard drive, courtesy of iTunes). However, it’s not so bad. I’ve already seen four out of ten in the ordinary course of things, so I’ll put my capsule reviews of those four up here, and a quick rundown of what I consider to be the favourites in the various categories.

First of all, here are the Best Picture nominees I’ve seen.

The King’s Speech
Big favourite this year, not just for Best Picture, but Best Actor and Best Director too. The King’s Speech is the most-nominated film this year, which generally bodes well and it’s easy to see why – it has Oscar glory stamped all over it. Apart possibly from Toy Story 3, it’s the most purely entertaining film on the list, has done well at the box office (although all the naughty swearing means an R rating which has hurt it a little in the States) and manages the ideal Oscar trick of being genuinely about something (duty, family, friendship, articulacy, communication, status) whilst at the same time, absolutely not daring to challenge its audience’s preconceptions in any way. Cosy enough to turn nobody away, yet meaty enough not to feel insubstantial, and blessed with two exceptional performances from Firth and Rush, this may not go down in history as a cast-iron classic, but it’s certainly in the right place at the right time (stealing momentum away from The Social Network).

Inception
Another film which tries to have its cake and eat it too, Inception, is a remarkable achievement from a remarkable director, and was a hugely fun night out when I went to see it on a nice big screen, but it doesn’t have a prayer in the Best Picture stakes. Whereas The King’s Speech is an entertaining drama which asks its audience to ponder weighty themes without asking any really awkward questions, Inception is a cerebral thriller, playing with levels of reality with huge daring and imagination, but with a popcorn heart. This is Nolan’s achievement – designing an intellectual framework within which he can pull off heart-stopping action sequences and eye-bending images, and then creating an emotional McGuffin to tie it all together. I loved it, despite Leonardo di Caprio’s characteristically bland central performance, despite Ellen Page’s dual role as naïf and sage, and despite the occasional plot hole. But its dry intellectual heft is no match for The King’s Speech double-whammy of historical weight and emotional drama. Worthy beats fun every time for Oscar, and so Chris Nolan will go home empty-handed, apart possibly from some technical awards.

The Social Network
Another film I thoroughly enjoyed, right up until the last ten minutes which attempted to tie a too-neat bow around what had been a compelling narrative thus far. Aaron Sorkin’s masterful and archly witty screenplay gracefully solves the problem of why we should care about what the geeks who invented Facebook ate for lunch between coding by the elegant device of the double-litigation flashback structure. As well as the wholly-unrealistic (but hugely satisfying)– whipcrack dialogue, the film showcases a pair of outstanding performances from Jesse Eisenberg and Spiderman-to-be Andrew Garfield and an invisible special effect – as they generally should be – to turn one actor into a pair of identical twins. What will hurt its chances at the Oscars are that it peaked too late, that David Fincher’s chilly direction will have put some people off what’s potentially a dry-seeming screenplay in the first place – and that Fincher himself was extravagantly praised for the lumpen Benjamin Button at the 2009 Oscars.

Toy Story 3
Will clearly win the Best Animated Feature award, but hasn’t a chance in hell of winning Best Picture, despite the fact that it apparently has a lot of the same things going for it as The King’s Speech – excellent box office, high quality entertainment, important themes which give it weight without dragging it down, technical standards dazzlingly high – but let’s be clear, no animated sequel ever has or ever will win Best Picture. Which is a shame, as it’s an exceptional piece of work even by Pixar’s high standards. Up was lovely, but the structure was a little clunky (and it was criticised in some quarters for double mumbo-jumbo), WALL-E was magnificent until they got on board the ship, after which I found the satire a little heavy-handed, Ratatouille had marvellous moments but lost energy in the middle third. Toy Story 3 reminds us where it all started for Pixar and also how far we’ve come. Resisting the urge to snazz-up Woody and Buzz, they’re just the same simple, yet appealing figures they were in 1995, the filmmakers flex their muscles with much more convincing humans and stunning simulation work of various kinds. The supporting cast is trimmed down where necessary (no Bo Peep, RC, Wheezy, Etch for example) and expanded on brilliantly (Michael Keaton as Ken, Timothy Dalton as Mr Pricklepants and Ned Beatty as Lots-O’-Huggin’ Bear are wonderful additions). The tension is almost unbearable during the incinerator scene, which is brilliantly resolved, and when Andy – still voiced by John Morris – plays with Woody and Buzz one last time, there isn’t a dry eye in the house.

So four down, six to go. And they are Black Swan (The Red Shoes meets Shutter Island), The Fighter (Rocky with Mark Wahlberg), The Kids are All Right (lesbians are mainstream now, cool), 127 Hours (I have to watch while you do what!?), True Grit (we’re not remaking the John Wayne film, we’re just adapting the same novel) and Winter’s Bone (which completely passed me by until it suddenly started popping up on American critics best of 2010 lists).

I’ll put reviews up here as I see the films, and I’ll attempt a little bit of crowd-sourcing to predict the results in the major categories. In the meantime, here are some gut reactions to the high profile nominations.

Best Picture – The King’s Speech pretty much has this sewn up I think, which means good news for Tom Hooper, since it’s rare for the director of the Best Picture to be overlooked.

Best Actor – will likely go to Colin Firth, who following his nomination last year for A Single Man, has demonstrated his Oscar-friendliness. But this is a strong category and it’s hard to right-off Javier Bardem, or – Oscar host! – James Franco.

Best Actress – is even harder to call, with all five women having a reasonable claim. My guess is that Natalie Portman has been made to suffer enough and hasn’t been smiled on yet by the Academy. The others are either too indie-obscure or too familiar with Oscar already, but any of them could do it, really.

Best Supporting Actor – is probably between Christian Bale, overlooked for The Dark Knight last year, and Geoffrey Rush, who may be swept along with The King’s Speech’s overall good fortune.

Best Supporting Actress – I have a strong hunch will go to Hailee Steinfeld who played the 14-year-old Mattie Ross in True Grit, at the remarkable age of, wow, 14. Best Supporting slots are good ways to reward newcomers, and otherwise overlooked films. Since I don’t believe True Grit will do well (a violent remake, which outweighs any nostalgia for westerns), this will be a place to recognise it. Steinfled could well follow in the footsteps of ten-year-old Tatum O’Neil and 11-year-old Anna Paquin.

The writing categories throw up a couple of oddities. The script for Toy Story 3, in which every twist and turn of the story is an original invention, is nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay, since some of the characters were created for a prior movie. On the other hand, the script for The King’s Speech, which documents actual historical events, is nominated for Best Original Screenplay, since it does not acknowledge any particular prior work. This aside, The King’s Speech will probably take this category too, while in the Adapted camp, it’s a straight fight between 127 Hours and The Social Network, both of which turned uncinematic true events into gripping narrative. Winter’s Bone is probably in with a slim chance too.

That will do for now. In short, The King’s Speech will do well, True Grit won’t do as well as its ten nominations suggest. The Social Network, Black Swan and Winter’s Bone all have possibilities. Inception will be almost entirely overlooked.

Given my track-record with this kind of prediction, that should be enough for you to put an enormous bet down on Inception right now, but we’ll see in a few weeks’ time.

Even by my standards, this review is heartily on the late side, so I will be brief. Basically, it’s marvellous. And it could so easily not have been. The last time Doctor Who took on Dickens’ venerable short novel, the results were disastrous for programme and leading man alike. Here, thanks in large part to a towering performance from Sir Michael Gambon, it works magnificently. In fact, this may have been the most completely successful Christmas special so far (read on).

The dilemma is a little contrived, but serves its purpose and is sketched in with admirable economy and finesse, including some cheeky visual nods to the recent Star Trek movie along the way. The key moment of “you didn’t hit the boy” is strong and simple and resonant, and the Doctor’s solution is a lovely Moffat-y mix of timebending paradoxes, jawdropping gags and just enough heartfelt emotion to paper over the cracks.

If you’ve ever wondered at the decorous ways in which leading ladies die gently and nobly of attractive diseases in movies-of-the-week (or even more highbrow fare such as Shadowlands), then you’ll be staggered at the way in which Katherine Jenkins faces imminent death with absolutely nothing in the way of debilitating symptoms beyond a very retro-looking countdown.

My only quibbles, disquiets or pauses are that Moffat Time Paradox stuff is threatening to become an over-used device – a sort of incorporeal sonic screwdriver. Next thing you know, they’ll be bribing the architect. Secondly, for the first time in ages, we were treated to some genuinely dodgy effects work during the shark-driven sleigh rides. It’s not even appropriately nostalgic, because it’s not fuzzy-edged CSO with parts of Matt Smith’s legs disappearing, it’s 1978 Superman The Movie-style visible matte lines, and actors happily lurching around, just not quite in tune with the changing angles of the background plate.

It’s also true that Amy and Rory don’t get much of a look-in, but to be honest that made sense. After the Doctor handling Sardick’s past, I had a horrible feeling that Amy would be handling the present at equal length followed by Rory somehow handling the future. In fact, the treatment of future was where all the timewimey stuff, the actual plot and the emotions of the story came together beautifully, and I’m sure Arthur Darvill will have more to do in the spring.

In short, what’s not to like? It’s complicated enough for the grown-ups, simple enough for the kids, it’s got a flying shark, the Singing Detective, an amazing acting debut from Katherine Jenkins, Matt Smith owns the part by now and it’s Doctor Who at Christmas. Five out of five. Easily.

Before I go, here’s a quick run-down of Christmas specials past. This is a short list since the only twentieth century episode which remotely counts is the bizarre The Feast of Steven also known as part 7 of the twelve part Hartnell leviathan The Daleks’ Masterplan. This demented entry, broadcast on Christmas Day 1965 features appearances from the Keystone Cops and Z Cars and ends with Hartnell wishing the viewers at home a happy Christmas. It no longer exists in the BBC archives.

However, following its triumphant return in 2005, a Christmas special was rapidly commissioned and almost instantly became a festive fixture.

The Christmas Invasion set the template while simultaneously introducing us to the definitive Davies Doctor. Absurdly Christmassey, or so it seemed at the time, it emphasised the audience’s existing relationship with Rose, Jackie and Mickey, deliberately keeping the new Doctor in the background until ready to give him a big entrance. And although David Tennant makes a huge impact in the last 15 minutes, the story is a bit ho-hum and the supposedly climactic sword fight is problematic firstly as a very physical bit of problem-solving for such an intellectual hero and secondly for some profoundly dodgy process work. The Doctor’s severed hand turns out to be the Christmas gift that just keeps giving however and the line “Don’t you think she looks tired” is just great – in fact the whole Harriet Jones goes all Brigadier on the Sycorax’s ass is a welcome shot of vinegar among all the sickly yuletide.

The Runaway Bride is absolutely amazing for the first twenty minutes or so (and I’m firmly in the pro-Donna camp). The motorway chase is one of the finest, most sustained pieces of dramatic, comedic and kinetic material that the series has ever offered. Through the middle, the puzzle of Donna’s boyfriend strains my interest and the revelation of the Racnoss is rather poor, thanks to the inexplicable decision to place poor Sarah Parish in a basically immobile spider suit and spray-paint her red.

Voyage of the Damned is the first of what became a cycle of temporary companion specials. Kylie is fine, but the concept of Doctor Who disaster movie feels wrong, and the whole is overblown and lacks focus.

The Next Doctor is two stories in one, neither wholly successful. The David Morrissey strand is nothing more than a slightly cynical headline-grabber from Davies. Next Doctor, my nutsack. This red herring is disposed of as quickly as is seemly, and we move on to Cyberman In The Snow which adds very little to the corpus. As with most of the David Tennant stories, it’s fun while it’s on, but it’s very short of the greatest that the series has to offer.

The Waters of Mars might have pipped A Christmas Carol if it had gone out at Christmas as originally-planned. It’s pretty-much perfect, but instead we got The End of Time Part One which if anything is even less coherent than the incredibly overblown second part.

As usual, the new series trailer had me salivating, so I’ll see you back here in the spring.

Part three is here

GoldenEye (1995)

w. Jeffrey Caine, Bruce Fierstein; d. Martin Campbell
The one with: him out of Remmington Steele, him out of Sharpe, him out of The Comic Strip Presents, the wonky music, the tank chase
Overview: the radical reinvention which we were promised in 1987 finally materialises. A new Bond, a new M, a new Moneypenny, gorgeous CGI titles, a crackerjack theme song – things are off to a good start. The contrast between this and Licence to Kill couldn’t be greater. The glamour, the fun, the charm are all back in full force, but this film knows how to ring the changes too. Whereas Licence attempted to give us Bond as a rogue agent and fudged it, this film gives us a real turncoat in the form of 006 turned meglomaniacal villain. I still can’t believe that in all the prelease press and TV coverage I saw, in all the interviews and previews, I entirely failed to notice that we hadn’t had the villain introduced to us! The excellent tank chase also kicks off what will prove to be a quite rewarding trend, as for the next half-a-dozen movies, the stunt team attempts to find more and different vehicles in which to stage chases. With a magnificent debut from Judi Dench as M, top-drawer stunts and effects work, an astonishingly assured debut from Irishman Brosnan, and a clutch of bright supporting cast members including Robbie Coltrane, Joe Don Baker, Alan Cumming, Samantha Bond’s spunky take on Miss Moneypenny and Famke Janssen quite beguiling as thigh-crushing Xenia Onatopp, this teeters on the brink of parody more than once, but never quite stumbles over it. Niggles? Brosnan’s hair is too long, and the five o’clock shadow isn’t a good look for him – it was abandoned after this film; Trevelyan’s evil plan makes no sense whatsoever; and the music is horrible, except for the already-mentioned theme song and the tank chase sequence. In general though, this is very assured and entertaining stuff, with a swagger and style which completely eluded the previous movie. As with Living Daylights, a few scenes provide a veneer of emotion which hints at just a little more depth to the character – and that’s all I really need. Takes its title from Ian Fleming’s house in Jamaica (really!).
Best for: pre-titles sequence – and that’s really saying something. Despite very stiff competition, this really is the last word in these sequences. The bungee jump off the dam is amazing; the gun battle in the weapons facility is brilliantly shot and combines action, humour and suspense with total control; the final stunt – freefalling after the crashing plane – is totally ludicrous, yet completely convincing; and the sequence sets up the big reveal which, when it comes, re-energises the middle of the film but which here manages not to be too clearly signposted. What a return to form! Hurrah!

Tomorrow Never Dies (1997)

w. Bruce Fierstein; d. Roger Spottiswode
The one with: all the Asian chopsocky (no, the other one), the climax on the enormous tanker (no, the other one), the remote control car, her out of Desperate Housewives
Overview: By now, the action movie had become a genre and it was films like Lethal Weapon, Robocop, Die Hard, Raiders and their various sequels that the Bond films were being compared to. The problem is that Bond really comes from a different tradition, in theory appealing to a much wider audience, but the crossover with action movies is clear to see. Where the best Bond films differ is that they have a little more plot, a bit more style, a bit more class than the average action movie. In his second outing, Brosnan is even more self-assured and makes the most of his brief appearances in the pretitles sequence (Brosnan himself never visited the location) and manages to carve out a recognisable figure amongst the mayhem, but Spottiswode is determined never to let the pace up for a second – even the briefing from M is delivered in the back of car, screeching through London. The one pause for breath is probably the highlight of the film – Bond, knocking back vodka, waiting for Paris Carver. This is followed by the excellent showdown with Vincent Schiavelli’s eerie Dr Kaufman and the preposterous, but fun remote control car chase. In Saigon, things take a turn for the noisier, and the wall-to-wall gunfire makes it hard to pick out the moments of sly humour, character beats and grace notes, which may or may not be there. What ultimately sinks the film is the terribly shaky performance by Jonathan Pryce, hopelessly miscast as Elliot Carver and with no clue how to combine comic book villainy with any hint of gravitas at all. For sheer excitement and adrenalin, it does pretty much work while it’s on, but as soon as it’s over, there’s nothing left. What is welcome is the arrival of David Arnold, who from now on becomes the Bond composer-in-residence, continuing John Barry’s legacy and unafraid of a drum machine if it’ll help. If only they’d used k d lang’s superb “Surrender” as the theme song instead of Sheryl Crow’s rather anonymous effort. Its title has nothing to do with Fleming or anything else.
Best for: pace. It will likely leave you out of breath, but if you’re in the mood you’ll probably enjoy the ride.

The World is Not Enough (1999)

w. Neil Purvis, Robert Wade, Bruce Fierstein; d. Michael Apted
The one with: the world’s least convincing nuclear physicist, yet more skiing, the boat chase down the Thames, Basil Fawlty
Overview: A polar opposite of its predecessor, strong where Tomorrow Never Dies was weak, yet it lacks the coherence, urgency and drive of that particularly kinetic entry. Handing the megaphone to a “proper” director in the shape of Michael Apted, means in turn that he lets the excellent second unit, commanded by Vic Armstrong, take care of the action. More than usual, then, this feels like a faintly uninteresting family/spy drama intercut with an unrelated but highly competent action movie. Another crackerjack pretitles sequence – the boat chase from MI6 to the under-construction Millennium Dome – gets the film off to a good start and Bond’s busted shoulder is an interesting wrinkle, but try as I might I can’t bring myself to really care about Elektra King, Renard and whatever it is they’re trying to do. Even the kidnapping of M seems low-key, perfunctory and without any real resonance or impact. I admire the way The World Is Not Enough tries to take the espionage storylines of From Russia With Love or On Her Majesty’s Secret Service and bring them up to date; I think it’s a good idea to try and create a Bond girl with more depth who can actually hurt our hero emotionally (Elektra, of course, not Christmas Jones); I think Bond is at home in these exotic European locations – I just remember how underwhelmed I was by it when I first saw it. Even Robbie Coltrane’s Zukovsky is markedly less fun second time around. Its title is Bond’s family motto, according to On Her Maj.
Best for: goodbyes. Q’s farewell is genuinely touching. Who could have known that Desmond Llewellyn would be killed in a car crash months later?

Die Another Day (2002)

w. Neil Purvis and Robert Wade; d. Lee Tamahori
The one with: the hovercraft, Bond goes rogue (no, the other one), Halle Berry, invisible car
Overview: Oh god, where to start? This was the twentieth “official” Bond movie, released in the fortieth anniversary year of the first movie and the fiftieth anniversary year of the first book, and was intended to be a celebration of the entire franchise, with nods and winks to most if not all of the preceding movies. But whereas the previous three films, for better or worse, each had a strong sense of identity, a clear mission statement (make Bond fun, make Bond energetic, make Bond work as drama) this one fires off wildly in every direction it can find. Like Octopussy, it never finds a coherent style or tone, and like Octopussy, some very good sequences don’t make up for some truly appalling ones. Unlike Octopussy, though, which shuffles up its various styles and plots, Die Another Day splits neatly down the middle. The hovercraft chase in the pretitles, while not in the same league as the TWINE boat chase or GoldenEye’s attack on the weapons complex, is fun, novel and shot with Vic Armstrong’s customary wit and verve. Bond’s capture, torture and escape is genuinely shocking and demonstrates both our hero’s vulnerability and his prowess far more effectively and cinematically than that dodgy shoulder in TWINE. Most of what happens in Cuba is fine and the partnership with Jinx is fun. The MI6 scenes are brilliantly nostalgic and effective and John Cleese makes the Quartermaster’s role his own – such a shame he didn’t return. And then Bond leaves for Iceland and the whole film falls to bits in spectacular style. Graves’ dual identity is stupid, the battle of computerised cars is boring and stupid, the CGI ice-surfing scene is unconvincing and stupid, the fight on the plane is confusing and stupid and the invisible car is the stupidest thing I’ve ever seen. Toby Stephens, if anything, is more ill-at-ease than even Jonathan Pryce, Rosamund Pike is a total blank and Madonna’s presence only serves to irritate. Michael Madsen is clearly being set-up as a new returning character, but it was not to be. Once again, time for a rethink.
Best for: fight (found weapons). That fencing scene might be the best fight since the elevator in Diamonds.

Casino Royale (2006)

w. Neil Purvis, Robert Wade, Paul Haggis; d. Martin Campbell
The one with: the black-and-white opening, the poker game, black Felix Leiter (no, the other one), Bond’s balls, the unresolved storyline
Overview: As with Timothy Dalton taking over from Roger Moore, most of the creative team remains in place, but the presence of a new leading man reinvigorates everyone. Artfully expanding Fleming’s slender 1952 novel with a new opening sequence setting up the conflict and a new coda which adds additional layers of complexity and emotion, Purvis and Wade create a magnificent debut for this “reimagined” James Bond, with a little bit of a dialogue polish from “proper” screenwriter Haggis, and with the blessed Sir Martin Campbell calling all the shots, not just shooting the dialogue scenes and then going home for an early night while the second unit films the fights and explosions, this is the most complete and coherent Bond film since – well, GoldenEye actually. Michael G Wilson had pitched “young Bond” to stepdad Broccoli many times in the past, but the older producer had always vetoed this on the basis that audiences wanted to see an experienced and capable Bond. But, by joining Bond’s story at precisely the point where he is transitioning from rookie to veteran, Casino Royale manages to have its beefcake and eat it too, with a simply stunning performance from Englishman Craig anchoring the whole thing. On first (and indeed subsequent) viewings Craig make me believe totally that this guy could seriously fuck people up, while actually making me care about his emotional problems. It’s a remarkable accomplishment. The monochrome opening, bereft of over-the-top stunts, is an apparently low-key way to begin, but as a statement of intent it’s compellingly clear. And when the film does explode into action, standards are as high as ever, but tellingly, it’s some of the non-whizz-bang-crash scenes which linger longest in the mind – Bond and Vesper on the train, Le Chiffre “scratching Bond’s balls”, the meeting with Mathis. If I have a quibble, it’s that the constant double-crossing and rug-pulling in the final third pulls me away from the emotional story, which does get a little soapy at times. But really, it’s only in Venice that the three demands of action, plot and emotion get in each other’s way. The rest of the time, it’s to its enduring credit that all three mesh perfectly.
Best for: chase (on foot). The parkour chase is not only hugely exciting, it’s not only fresh and new, it simultaneously defines Daniel Craig as the Bond we know and love and also very much as a new and individual take on the character. Again and again Sébastien Foucan leaps nimbly over some wall or other obstacle, which Bond simply barrels straight through. Rarely before has the character been given such singularity of purpose. At once, instantly Bondian, yet you can’t imagine any of his predecessors doing it in quite the same way.

Quantum of Solace (2008)

w. Neil Purvis, Robert Wade, Paul Haggis; d. Marc Forster
The one with: all that oil (no, the other one), Bond goes rogue (yet again), fights in the new Jason Bourne confus-o-cam style, the unresolved storyline (again)
Overview: For the third time running, a new Bond’s stunning debut has been almost completely ruined by trying to turn the second film into an amped-up, all-action sequel in a different genre entirely. This time, not only are we propelled from demented action sequence to demented action sequence as quickly as plot demands allow, but the action sequences themselves are shot so wildly and cut so quickly that it’s rarely possible to decipher what is actually going on. I suspect that some splendid stunts are being performed in the opening car chase and in the scaffolding gun-fight which follows, but it’s hard to say for certain. When it does quieten down, during the opera for example, it’s still more confusing than compelling. Apparently functioning as the middle of a trilogy, this retrofits much of the actions of Casino Royale’s villains as the work of a larger and more sinister organisation, but by the end of the film these plot strands remain unresolved, and with the Bond rights once again in limbo at the time of writing, it seems they will stay unresolved for a while longer. Also of note is the rather distasteful repeated motif of Bond executing people whom M wished to question, consistently written and played almost as if Bond is a character in a fifties sit-com who has eaten his boss’s sandwich. I half-expect Judi Dench to start saying “Why I oughta…” Is it too much to hope for the taking of human life to be given a little more significance? Are we supposed to know who “Yusef” is from Casino Royale and be impressed when Bond doesn’t kill him at the end? I couldn’t care less. It is at least short – at 106 minutes it’s the shortest ever, curiously immediately following the longest ever. The title comes from one of the short stories in For Your Eyes Only.
Best for: sacrificial lambs. The death of Mathis is genuinely affecting, especially when recalling his conflicted loyalties from the previous movie (and I do remember that).

Part two is here

For Your Eyes Only (1981)

w. Richard Maibaum, Michael G Wilson; d. John Glen
The one with: Dr Zarkov out of Flash Gordon, Scaroth out of Doctor Who, crossbow assassinations, the 2CV, lots more skiing, lots more scuba.
Overview: Recognising that, as successful as Moonraker had been at the box office, further developments in that direction would lead to madness, Broccoli reigned the excesses back in and brought Bond back to earth. Taking up near-permanent residency in the director’s chair was stalwart editor and second-unit director John Glen, whose association with the series went back to On Her Majesty’s Secret Service. Similarly moving into the typewriter next to Richard Maibaum was Michael G Wilson, Broccoli’s stepson, who had been hanging around Bond sets most of his life and who would go on to run the franchise with Broccoli’s daughter Barbara. The film begins with the revenge on Blofeld (in all but name) which Diamonds denied us. The scene at Tracy’s grave is the last time the series explicitly maintains the conceit that the chap on the screen is the same as the one who blew up Doctor No’s base in Jamaica in 1962. Following this is a cold war thriller, with occasional flashes of glamour and humour, not all of which work. The 2CV chase freshens up what could have been a lot of repetitive screeching and crashing, but the appearance of Janet Brown as Thatcher at the end is a step too far. Also adding to the sense of a movie drifting away from its origins, this is the first in the series not to feature Bernard Lee as M (he died during preproduction); James Villiers stands in as Bill Tanner. And John Barry’s still not back from his tax exile, so Bill Conti takes over on the music front. Some solid sequences, and never less than entertaining while it’s on, this doesn’t have the guts to give us a really hard-edged thriller, but nor does it sparkle the way that Spy did. Roger Moore’s advancing years now require him to take a paternalistic attitude to an apparently teenage girl who obediently jumps into his bed for a little après-ski, and he doesn’t even get to have it off with Carole Bouquet (thirty years his junior) until the credits are rolling. Insurance wouldn’t even allow him to go underwater, so all of his sub-aqua closeups are shot “dry-for-wet” on a soundstage. Really time to go now, surely? Takes its title (but nothing else) from a collection of short stories, the Fleming novels now having been exhausted, save for the first – Casino Royale – for which Broccoli and co did not control the rights.
Best for: suspense. The ascent up St Cyril’s is genuinely tense and brilliantly staged.

Octopussy (1983)

w. Richard Maibaum, Michael G Wilson, George MacDonald Fraser; d. John Glen
The one with: the trip to India, Q in a hot air balloon, Steven Berkoff, the circus, Fabergé eggs.
Overview: most of the Roger Moore films have a certain tension between wanting to take themselves seriously as spy thrillers (which runs the risk of making them indistinguishable from other spy thrillers) and wanting to give the audience a good time (which runs the risk of double-taking pigeons and the like). However, there is no Bond movie, possibly no movie, more disjointedly lacking in identity than this one. We open with a quite splendid stunt sequence in which Bond cheerfully blows up an airbase somewhere in Latin America. While it is commonly assumed that Bond films open with mini-movies, unconnected with the main feature, only this one and Goldfinger’s genuinely have no connection at all to the main plot. What follows initially is a slab of espionage intrigue surrounding a forged Fabergé egg which is more confusing than interesting. Once we move to India, courtesy of “Flashman” writer George MacDonald Fraser, things take a drastic turn for the worse, with Moore’s smug self-satisfaction now manifesting as patronising parochialism, idiotic jokes like requesting that a ravenous tiger should “si-it” in the manner of TV’s Barbara Woodhouse (she didn’t even train cats for fuck’s sake), or the flute player trilling Monty Norman’s James Bond theme. Then, miraculously, the main threat – driven by Berkoff’s pleasingly unhinged Soviet general – takes hold and we get a really good chase and suspense sequence in an East German circus tent. Although Roger Moore in clown make-up is pretty good shorthand for “Bond films don’t take themselves seriously anymore,” the bomb-at-the-circus scene is played with the kind of deadly earnest that might have benefited other parts of the picture. An attempt has been made to give Moore a leading lady who doesn’t make him look quite so much like a dirty old man – by which I mean she’s 18 years younger than him instead of thirty. Robert Brown takes over as M for this and the next three pictures, and while never doing anything wrong, only makes me miss comfortingly crusty Bernard Lee. That’s this film all over – not much that’s horribly wrong, does feel like a Bond film for the most part, but has been apparently assembled from unconnected bits and pieces left over from previous efforts. That some of these bits are actually quite good doesn’t make the less good ones any more satisfying, of course. More damaging is the general feeling that no-one’s heart is quite in this, and no-one really knows what direction to take the series in now. Time for some fresh blood?
Best for: plot convolutions. Wait, which fucking Fabergé egg is that now?

A View To A Kill (1985)

w. Richard Maibaum, Michael G Wilson; d. John Glen
The one with: The Golden Gate Bridge, Steed out of The Avengers, Christopher Walken, horses
Overview: the same weary team, in front of and behind the camera, staggers out for another miserable canter around a thoroughly well-worn course. From the instant that the moderately impressive snowboard sequence is underscored with the Beach Boys’ “California Girls” you can tell that this is straining for effect rather than effortlessly soaring; thrashing around rather than closing in on its target. The Paris sequences are flat, the horse-doping plotline confusing and boring, Patrick MacNee is wasted, and the San Francisco chase indistinguishable from dozens of similar efforts in contemporary movies and TV shows. Bond himself is reduced to smirking close-ups, stunt men in chunky sweaters, and a cookery demonstration. The final fight on the Golden Gate Bridge is all right, I suppose, but honestly how am I meant to care by this stage? It’s not even the real Beach Boys. Should have been shot in the paddock.
Best for: genuinely nothing. Very much of it is thoroughly poor and while some bits can spastically clamber up to the level of “good” – Grace Jones’s jump off the Eiffel Tower, Christopher Walken’s performance as Zorin, Moore’s partnership with MacNee, each of these is bested earlier in the series (by the ski jump from Spy; Gert Frobe, Donald Pleasance or Michael Lonsdale at least; and Pedro Armendáriz as Kerim Bey, respectively). Many people like the theme song, but it can hardly be called the series’ best. Even the film’s big climax, blowing up the mine, would have been greeted by fans of what were by now being called “action movies” not with happy astonishment but by bored familiarity provided they’d seen Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom which did the same scene far better twelve months earlier.

The Living Daylights (1987)

w. Richard Maibaum, Michael G Wilson; d. John Glen
The one with: the Ferris wheel, the cello case, the Mujahideen as good guys
Overview: Despite one major change in front of the camera, the same writer, producer, director and key supporting cast remain from the previous entries. Lois Maxwell, whose Miss Moneypenny had graced every previous film, is the only casualty other than Roger Moore; she was replaced by the instantly forgettable Caroline Bliss. In comes saturnine Welshman Timothy Dalton, who had reportedly turned the part down in 1969 on the grounds that he was too young (probably rightly, he was 23). This time around, the role had been offered to Pierce Brosnan, but a conflict with the TV series Remmington Steele meant that he was unable to accept it. Dalton signed on the dotted line almost immediately prior to shooting, so Maibaum and Wilson found themselves writing for a generic anybond and not trying to tailor the script to any particular actor’s strengths. Rather remarkably, this approach pays off. It doesn’t hurt that the glamour and globetrotting sophistication has been ramped up, so we are taken to Bratislava, Afghanistan and Tangier, rather than some of the more familiar locales we’ve seen lately. But this movie also balances the tension and wit perfectly. There’s a veneer of emotion in Bond’s attitude to his mission, the girl and his colleagues – enough to give it depth, not enough to be a distraction – the double-crossing plot feels complex enough to be more than an excuse to stitch together a bunch of action sequences, and there’s a comforting nostalgia triggered by things like the return of the Aston Martin, but combined with a freshness and energy that’s been sorely lacking since Moonraker. Good jokes too – as Bond and Kara slide by a snowy border control on a cello-case-cum-sled, waving their passports, Dalton cheerfully brays “we’ve nothing to declare” to the dumb-struck guard. A few niggles – the Pushkin role taken by John Rhys-Davies was intended for Walter Gotell’s General Gogol, part of the Bond “family” since Spy. Bringing in a new character makes it hard to identify with how conflicted Bond feels when told his friend is a traitor. More seriously, there is no properly hissable villain. Joe Don Baker’s Whitaker is introduced too late and has none of the grandiose ambitions of a real Bond villain, and Necros and Koskov are just doing his bidding. A shame, but hardly a major flaw in this, probably the most completely entertaining of all the eighties Bonds. To add to the fun, John Barry returns for a final turn holding the baton and contributes one of his best scores of the series.
Best for: fight scene (aerial). The cargo net fight – a combination of genuine aerial photography, faultlessly matched with a studio set shot with big fans over a painted desert floor – is absolutely fantastic.

Licence to Kill (1989)

w. Michael G Wilson, Richard Maibaum; d. John Glen
The one with: the same Felix Leiter as Live and Let Die, Bond goes rogue, cocaine dissolved in gasoline, Benicio del Toro looking amazingly thin and lithe and young.
Overview: So, the producers think they’ve found a new direction to head in – Timothy Dalton wants to do acting and has a nice line in glowering, and the fans still haven’t shut up about the double-taking pigeon, so we’ll strip back the humour, ramp up the violence and really go for broke. But aren’t Bond movies meant to be fun? Borrowing unfilmed pages from Fleming’s novel Live and Let Die (not for the first time), Bond’s motivation in this movie is having had his best friend Felix fed to a shark while Felix’s new young wife was being raped and killed. Operating outside the purview of MI6, his moral compass seems a little off. The jokey sadism of earlier films has been replaced by a disturbingly psychotic bloodlust, which given the chief villain’s overall scheme seems a little over-the-top to say the least. By this time, the stunt, chase and fight teams have complete mastery over their domains and can make any of these sequences work – so the fight in the bar, Sanchez’s escape and especially the final truck chase are brilliantly executed, and it’s true that the film lacks the disjointed, multiple-personality feel of some of its predecessors. On its own terms, as a one-off story about a slightly unhinged British agent who takes the law into his own hands, it does kind of work. Only the more than usually sustained presence of Desmond Llewellyn’s cuddly Q and the fact that Bond pays no price for his morally questionable actions mars this reading, On the other hand, as a continuation of the story begun in Doctor No, this is unpalatably brutal, lacking in wit and style, with muddy cinematography and it just feels wrong. Possibly the legal troubles, which stalled the franchise for six years following this outing, were a blessing. The first movie not to take its title from a Fleming work, although the phrase had been long associated with Bond.
Best for: chase (vehicular). As mentioned, the truck chase is totally brilliant all the way through.

Next time – the modern era!

Part one is here.

Diamonds are Forever (1971)

w. Richard Maibaum, Tom Mankiewicz; d. Guy Hamilton
The one with: Wint and Kidd, Las Vegas, Charles Gray (no, the other one), theme song by Shirley Bassey (no, the other one), the moon buggy chase
Overview: Connery’s back! It’s only been four years since You Only Live Twice but they’ve taken their toll. Noticeably older, greyer and thoroughly uninterested in the whole affair, it’s easily his worst and laziest performance. The only glimpse we get of the old magic is when he steps on the roof of that elevator. On the villain’s side, after a remarkable and indelible portrayal from Donald Pleasance and pretty good effort from Telly Savalas, for the third part of the Blofeld trilogy, for Bond’s revenge for the death of Tracy, for the big showdown, we get a hopelessly miscast Charles Gray, who wanders effetely and ineffectually throughout proceedings and even gets to drag up at one point, as if his mere presence wasn’t already absurd enough. The supposed climax is an appallingly shoddy affair, lumpenly shot, with no wit or style at all. Our last glimpse of this greatest of all Bond villains is this near-incomprehensible slurry on an oil rig. Believe it or not, none of these is the worst crime of this movie. To see what’s really wrong with Diamonds are Forever, you have to look at Tiffany Case and the Las Vegas setting. Bond movies aren’t just chases and punching; they need a bit of glamour, a touch of the exotic. They need sophistication and class to offset the violence. Where Honey, Tatiana, Domino, even Pussy and especially Tracy had had class to spare, Tiffany is brash, crass and totally out of place. Likewise, the Las Vegas setting is overfamiliar, vulgar and no match for the globe-trotting of previous films. Wint and Kidd are fun, but they aren’t onscreen for long. Bambi and Thumper are just ludicrous and the pretitle sequence is cack-handedly shot and edited. I suppose we should be thankful that no major characters are revoiced, but it’s a high price to pay!
Best for: actually, it is best for something. It has the series’ best fight (hand-to-hand). The bonecrunching sequence in the lift is astonishing

Live and Let Die (1973)

w. Tom Mankiewicz; d. Guy Hamilton
The one with: all the voodoo, her out of Doctor Quinn Medicine Woman, him off of The Saint, the rigged tarot deck, the fight on the train (no the other one)
Overview: Second time around, they figure out how to deal with Connery’s absence far better. They cast an (English!) actor with his own identity and his own brand of charisma. To avoid comparisons, they avoid or vary the most iconic Bond scenes – no Q, no vodka martinis, cigars instead of cigarettes, Bond is briefed by M in his flat instead of at MI6. And then they stick the new guy into the middle of a blacksploitation movie! Far, far better than the efforts either side of it, Live and Let Die does pretty much work. Some questionable choices – the continually-broadening humour, the awkwardly dated racial attitudes, the weird acceptance of the supernatural, another trip to America – are balanced by some splendid sequences – the back-of-the-crocodiles escape, the final fight with Tee-Hee (derivative but well-staged), the amusing and exciting bus chase and one of the series’ finest title songs (and that’s saying something). Even the Harlem location is made to seem exotic in the way that Istanbul, Japan or Switzerland were (and that Las Vegas wasn’t) largely because Roger Moore’s Bond breezes through it, thoroughly and resolutely English in every move and syllable.
Best for: suave urbanity. Roger Moore would never look or sound better.

The Man With The Golden Gun (1974)

w. Tom Mankiewicz, Richard Maibaum; d. Guy Hamilton
The one with: Dracula as the bad guy, mini-me, a flying car for fuck’s sake
Overview: worse even than the dreary Diamonds this is easily the most tedious, least well-constructed and most thoroughly ill-judged Bond of the seventies. Presumably figuring that since Bond-goes-blacksploitation had worked so well, the plan now apparently was to drop him into an Asian chop-socky movie. I guess that might have worked, but it would need to be much better-plotted, far more stylish, have far less Clifton James in it and a much, much shorter boat chase. Live and Let Die spent about twenty minutes zooming around the Louisiana Bayous and the presence there of a redneck sheriff at least made some sort of sense. Reprised here at twice the length and with half the wit, it brings the middle of the movie to a yawn-inducing halt. What bright spots there are are generally obscured by the errors of judgement either side. Even that spectacular corkscrew car-jump has a stupid swannee whistle sound effect over it. The final duel allows Christopher Lee a bit of room to play but the script does him no favours at all. Moore is fine, but when you add the stupidest Bond girl of the whole series (and that’s saying something) then the whole thing pretty much collapses. And did I mention the flying car?
Best for: gadget. That it (the golden gun of the title) belongs to the villain speaks to how poorly-judged all this is.

The Spy Who Loved Me (1977)

w. Christopher Wood, Richard Maibaum; d. Lewis Gilbert.
The one with: agent XXX, Jaws (no the other one), the submarine-eating boat, the sub-aqua Lotus Esprit
Overview: All change! After three movies ranging from uneven to appalling, all with the same key creative personnel, but with producers Albert Broccoli and Harry Saltzman no longer on speaking terms – something had to be done to stop the rot. Saltzman sold his share of the Bond franchise to United Artists, leaving Broccoli in sole charge. His response to the previous film’s disappointing box office was to secure double the budget and spend three years getting this one just right. It succeeds magnificently. From the jaw-dropping ski-off-a-cliff pre-titles stunt to the final destruction of the Liparus, this successfully balances the humour and the jeopardy, gives the girl something to do, ramps the gadgetry and spectacle way up and brings that glamour and exotic sheen back to the series. When Roger Moore, looking fantastic in his tuxedo, is fighting a man with metal teeth in the middle of the Egyptian desert, you know you’re watching a Bond movie and all is right with the world. I also think that this was Moore’s first time in a tux as Bond and that seems significant somehow. The villain is a bit ho-hum, the plot is basically an underwater rehash of You Only Live Twice (and it’s got the same director), and the Broadway version of the theme song “Nobody Does It Better” over Bond’s final double-entendre is hideous, but these are minor quibbles. Spy proved that Bond in the seventies made sense, and if that wasn’t enough, for about thirty seconds during the “In our business, Anya, people get killed” scene, you can catch Roger Moore acting! The car-turning-into-a-submarine is almost as stupid an idea as the car-turning-into-a-plane in the previous film, but everyone concerned is paying attention this time and they make you believe it. And then make you laugh at it. Masterly.
Best for: stunts. Rick Sylvester, doubling for Roger Moore, skis off that cliff for queen and country.

Moonraker (1979)

w. Christopher Wood, d. Lewis Gilbert
The one with: Bond in space! But also in France, Venice and the Amazon, not to mention falling from 20,000 feet.
Overview: Often-maligned and held up as a grim example of all that went wrong with James Bond, when you actually sit down and watch it, most of it is fine, and some of it is very good indeed. The problem is that the occasional lapses of judgement are genuinely ghastly. The astonishing aerial work in the pretitles sequence is capped off by the crass gag with Jaws feebly flapping his arms; the sumptuous Venice location is defiled by the absurd hover-gondola sequence complete with infamous double-taking pigeon; and then there’s that Star Wars space battle at the end. But if you can swallow the idea of a squadron of laser-toting British troops storming a space station then you’ve got to admit that it’s wonderfully well staged. What I remember as a kid is the feeling of disappointment I got when Sean Connery was prevented from taking off in You Only Live Twice and the unbelievable excitement I felt when Roger Moore made it into orbit! But even if everything from take-off onward is a wash as far as you’re concerned, the earlier sequences have any number of classic moments – the centrifuge scene gives us Moore’s Bond genuinely hurt and scared; the pheasant-shooting scene is taught, grim and witty; the boat chase is commendably brief (and we get to hear John Barry’s 007 theme again for the first time in ages) and the cable-car fight is hugely exciting. Sure, this is the same plot as the previous film yet again, but with many of the plot holes closed, a better leading lady and a far better chief villain. On the other hand, Roger Moore’s suave savoir-faire is starting to seem off-puttingly smug and his hair, closely cropped and neatly parted in 1973, is rapidly heading towards eighties swept-back absurdity. He’s also starting to look a little long-in-the-tooth for all this running-around and punching people. Time to go?
Best for: villainy. Drax is genuinely scary and beautifully played by Michael Lonsdale. Oh! And, best double-entendre, if only for the sheer lengths the script goes to to make it work – “I think he’s attempting re-entry, sir!”

Next time – the John Glen years.

As regular readers of this blog (are there such things?) will know, I love a long-running franchise, and I love a list. With no Doctor Who until the Christmas special, I thought I’d turn my eye on that other audio-visual hero of the sixties, played by a succession of British actors, resurrected and suddenly made relevant again in the twenty-first century – James Bond. But which James Bond film is best? Well, all of them obviously. At least, each one is best for something. And before you ask, no the Casino Royale with David Niven and Woody Allen doesn’t count and nor does Never Say Never Again.

Dr No (1962)

w: Richard Maibaum, Johanna Harwood, Berkely Mather; d. Terence Young
The one with: Ursula Andress coming out of the sea, “That’s a Smith & Wesson and you’ve had your six”, Jamaica, metal hands
Overview: Rarely has a film series started with such confidence, such dash and such style. Connery, while only bearing a passing resemblance to the Bond of the books, instantly inhabits the role, his body-builder’s bulk moving cat-like under director Terence Young’s sheen of sophistication – he’s magnetic. Other elements of the series are also in place right from the start – Monty Norman’s theme tune (arranged by John Barry), the bonkers villain with his mad plan, Ken Adam’s demented set-design, the girl – but others have yet to emerge – the titles sequence starts with the gun barrel but then goes all wonky, the action is a little underbudgeted, there’s no Q and it does take a while to get going. What survives after nearly fifty years is the vitality and opulence. If it looks this fresh today, just imagine how audiences in 1962 reacted. Ursula Andress as Honey Rider is dubbed throughout by Monica van der Zyl.
Best for: Entrance of a Bond girl. In casting, dialogue, camera work, everything, this is iconic.

From Russia With Love (1963)

w. Richard Maibaum, Johanna Harwood; d. Terence Young
The one with: the gypsy encampment, Kerim Bey, Red Grant, Rosa Klebb and her spiky shoes
Overview: Free of the excesses of the later efforts, but even more confident than its predecessor, this is probably the only Bond film which really functions as an espionage movie, easily the best of the 1960s, and possibly the best one ever. Scene after scene is both iconic and brilliantly-staged – the pretitles unveiling of not-Bond, Rosa Klebb’s knuckle-duster-assisted selection of Red Grant, Robert Shaw as Red Grant, the often-imitated but never equalled train fight, and the first love scene between Bond and Tatiana – still being used to audition new Bonds and new girls twenty-five years later. While it doesn’t have the wall-to-wall action of many later films, what makes this movie succeed is that the spy stuff is genuinely gripping, but when it goes for action it really delivers. Daniella Bianchi as Tatiana Romanova is dubbed throughout by Barbara Jefford.
Best for: Best friends. Kerim Bey is just perfect.

Goldfinger (1964)

w. Richard Maibaum, Paul Dehn; d. Guy Hamilton
The one with: The golf game, the Aston Martin, Oddjob, Shirley Eaton covered in gold paint. “No, Mr Bond, I expect you to die.”
Overview: Only three movies in, and the template is pretty much set. Gun barrel, pretitles sequence (this is the one where Bond unzips the wetsuit to reveal the white tuxedo), wobbly graphics over wailing song, villain, sacrificial lamb girl, chase, new girl, villain’s plan, villain’s plan foiled, tah-dah! Q and John Barry, introduced in the last film, are now permanent residents and the action sequences and gadgets reach a new deliriously over-the-top level with the introduction of the Aston Martin. Yet for all the iconic images which dominate it; for all that the villain, henchman and girl set the template for all the films that follow, actually as two hours of cinema it’s not perfect, thanks to a rather static middle third during which Bond is locked up and inactive. Gert Frobe as Goldfinger is dubbed throughout by Michael Collins.
Best for: Theme song, obviously.

Thunderball (1965)

w. Richard Maibaum, John Hopkins; d. Guy Hamilton
The one with: all the underwater stuff. No, not that one, the other one.
Overview: Oh dear. What went wrong? Goldfinger’s Aston Martin is replaced by a fairly risible rocket pack (although genuine – albeit fantastically limited in range), Honor Blackman’s stunningly self-assured Pussy Galore is replaced by the dull and whiny Claudine Auger – dubbed throughout by Monica van der Zyl again, Gert Frobe’s charismatic villain is replaced by the anonymous and bland Adolpho Celi – dubbed throughout by Robert Rietty – and the lush, witty and tense final showdown at Fort Knox is replaced by an awful lot of slow and murky underwater photography, and a hamfistedly back-projected and undercranked boat chase. It’s not all bad news – the opening scenes at Shrublands are fun (although it doesn’t feel like the movie’s started yet) and Luciana Paluzzi as Fiona Volpe is wonderful, but to modern eyes most of this looks ponderous and clumsy. Audiences at the time didn’t seem to mind – adjusted for inflation it’s the most successful Bond movie ever by quite some way.
Best for: death of the villain’s number two (you can’t really call Fiona a “henchman”) – “Do you mind if my friend sits this one out? She’s just dead…”

You Only Live Twice (1967)

w. Roald Dahl (yes, that Roald Dahl); d. Lewis Gilbert.
The one with: the base in the volcano, Donald Pleasance as the scarred and cat-stroking Blofeld trying to start World War III (no, not that one, the other one).
Overview: With new occupants in the writer’s and director’s chairs, this movie also sees the first time that the Fleming novel of the same name is almost totally abandoned. Novellist and short-story writer Dahl, just embarking on his career as a children’s writer, contributes his only Bond screenplay and it represents the last piece of the Bond puzzle. All future movies will attempt to recapture fond memories of From Russia With Love, Goldfinger and You Only Live Twice, or will be attempting to reinvent the series in some way. To be fair, many of these attempts are wildly successful, but the period of heady discovery ends here, with Blofeld’s fantastic underground lair. When people spoof Bond, reference Bond or reuse the archetypes, more often than not it’s this film they’re thinking of, not least because the basic plot (in the sense of storyline and in the sense of evil plan) is recycled half-a-dozen more times after this. What’s sometimes forgotten is – as with Goldfinger – how sluggish much of the middle is. Tetsuro Tamba as Tiger Tanaka is dubbed throughout by Robert Rietty again.
Best for: villain’s lairs. How do you top a volcano?

On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (1969)

w. Richard Maibaum; d. Peter Hunt.
The one with: all the skiing. No, the other one.
Overview: Connery quits! In response the series firstly attempts to test the theory that it doesn’t really matter who plays Bond, and secondly returns to adapting novels rather than inventing bonkers plots to stitch together stunt sequences. Neither proves to be a wholly satisfactory experiment. George Lazenby, supposedly cast because he moved so beautifully, looks stiff and awkward, sounds ghastly (and is himself unfathomably dubbed by George Baker when supposedly impersonating Sir Hilary) and never convinces. Opposite him, Telly Savalas is surprisingly good as Blofeld – but not as good as Pleasance and because it’s such a faithful adaptation of the book, they just ignore the fact that Blofeld knows perfectly well what Bond looks like because he met him Japan. Then, there’s Diana Rigg. The Bond people have gone Avengers shopping again and come up with a stunning performance from the erstwhile Emma Peel. With Rigg on the screen, it’s almost possible to forget about Lazenby. In widescreen, the film looks amazing, but many of the chases and fights go on too long (the bobsled run lasts about a week), that awful undercranking is back and there’s that ghastly line at the end of the pretitles sequence. On the other hand, the love story actually works, so does the espionage stuff, and the ending is absolutely stunning in every way. Much of it is the best the series ever managed, much else is dated and clumsy. It’s also almost the longest Bond movie, running well over two hours (only the 2006 Casino Royale is longer) and it’s in desperate need of a trim. As well as Lazenby, Gabriele Ferzetti as Draco was dubbed by David de Keyser.
Best for: genuine emotion. But is that what you want from a Bond film?

Next time… Roger Moore and the seventies!

Part three is here

SERIES 7

NOTE: The last full series to date

7.1 Detectives On The Edge Of A Nervous Breakdown 22 Apr 1993, BBC2 Thu 9pm (35 mins)
Written by Keith Allen & Peter Richardson. Directed by Keith Allen & Peter Richardson
Featuring Allen, Richardson
Plus: Gary Beadle, Jim Broadbent, Jim Carter, Phil Cornwell, Sara Crowe, Jimmy Fagg, Richard Vernon
When the Gourmet Detective is killed in a seventies-style slaying, nineties detective Spanker must work with not only mid-seventies Bullshitters Bonehead and Foyle, but also Shouting George from the Weeney and early seventies dandy Jason Bentley of Department Z.
A sort of winking, leering, Life on Mars from the early nineties, the parody of long-forgotten Jimmy Nail vehicle Spender is piss-weak, and Cornwell is as poor as ever, but the presence of Jim Broadbent, brilliantly taking-off John Thaw, elevates the antics of Bonehead and Foyle and the extra targets for satire adds much-needed variety, compared to the original Bullshitters outing. However, in his distracting second role, Richardson promises much but delivers very little as Jason King/Bentley. Oh for Nigel Planer or Rik Mayall in this part. It’s tempting, but probably over-generous to see the incongruous song-and-dance routines as spoofing Dennis Potter, but it’s more likely that Jimmy Nail’s pop career was what Allen and Richardson had in mind, assuming it was anything more than pure indulgence.

7.2 Space Virgins From Planet Sex 29 Apr 1993, BBC2 Thu 9pm (35 mins)
Written by Peter Richardson & Pete Richens. Directed by Keith Allen & Peter Richardson
Featuring: Allen, Coltrane, Edmondson, French, Richardson, Saunders
Plus: Gary Beadle, Phil Cornwell, Doon Mackichan, Miranda Richardson, Sara Stockbridge
When a gang of alien women come to Earth in search of sperm, it’s down to secret agent James Blonde to foil their plans.
Absolutely ghastly. Despite the welcome presence of more than two-or-three of the key performers for the first time in ages, this is possibly the Comic Strip nadir. Undergraduate James Bond spoof mixed with pre-adolescent misogynistic sci-fi sex fantasy with yet more of Allen and Richardson’s by-now tiresome obsession with nineties new-man-ism. Significantly less fun than either the Bond films or the Roger Corman schlock it’s spoofing and featuring some of the dodgiest Welsh accents you’ll ever hear. The impoverished production values and awful music don’t help either. Avoid.

7.3 Queen Of The Wild Frontier 6 May 1993, BBC2 Thu 9pm (35 mins)
Written by Peter Richardson & Pete Richens. Directed by Peter Richardson
Featuring: Richardson, Sayle
Plus: Julie T Wallace, Josie Lawrence, Jack Docherty, Gary Beadle, Lynsey Baxter
Two escaped criminals are given shelter by a couple of farming sisters, starved of male company.
Julie T Wallace is pleasingly bonkers in the lead role, but Josie Lawrence finds nothing to do as her foil. It probably doesn’t help that the parts were almost certainly written with French and Saunders in mind. Jack Docherty fits in nicely in a part which might have gone to Edmondson or Allen ten years earlier, leaving Richardson and Sayle in bit-parts. Overall, this is solid, but rather unremarkable. The wild boys of British comedy are now reduced to telling only vaguely quirky bucolic love stories. Fine while it’s on, but hardly the point. Looks nice though.

7.4 Gregory – Diary Of A Nut Case 13 May 1993, BBC2 Thu 9pm (40 mins)
Written by Peter Richardson & Pete Richens. Directed by Peter Richardson
Featuring Allen, Edmondson, Planer, Richardson
Plus: Doon Mackichan, Hugh Quarshie, Sara Stockbridge, Simon McBurney, Phil Cornwell, Steve O’Donnell, Kate Robbins
Would-be serial killer Gregory Dawson documents his feeble exploits as a video diary. We also see clips from the movie which inspired him.
The Silence of the Lambs spoof is clumsy and obvious – and ironically, easily bettered by the French and Saunders take-off the same year (directed by Bob Spiers who helmed many of the early Comic Strip movies). The best joke is Keith Allen’s heavy Welsh accent as the Lecter-alike Genghis, but even this is spoiled by another pointless song-and-dance routine. The video diary segments are far better, with an excellent central performance from Edmondson – who shot to fame as violently anarchistic punk Vyvyan and yet is so often at his most effective in Comic Strip films as anxious losers. The social satire is, again, fairly toothless, but the actual “Diary of a Nutcase” story is very effective.
NOTE: This would be the last Richardson/Richens script until the 1998 revival.

7.5 Demonella 20 May 1993, BBC2 Thu 9pm (30 mins)
Written by Paul Bartel & Barry Dennen. Directed by Paul Bartel
Featuring: Allen, Coltrane, Edmondson, Planer, Richardson, Saunders
Plus: Miriam Margolyes, Sue Holland, Miranda Richardson, Paul Bartel
A struggling music producer is offered a guaranteed hit record by a slinky Satan, and all she wants in return is his mother’s recipe for chicken soup.
This, the only Comic Strip film not written or directed by any of the core team, sees Paul Bartel from the turkey turkey in the director’s chair. As film-maker he has no sense of time, place or pacing and as writer he and co-author Barry Dennen seem determined to lower the dramatic stakes at every turn, but they have no good jokes to put in the place of dramatic tension, nothing original to say and nothing new to add to the already vastly overfamiliar Faust story.

7.6 Jealousy 27 May 1993, BBC2 Thu 9pm (30 mins)
Written by Robbie Coltrane & Morag Fullarton. Directed by Robbie Coltrane
Featuring: Allen, Coltrane, Planer, Richardson, Saunders
Plus: Peter Capaldi, Steven O’Donnell, Miranda Richardson, Kathy Burke, Gary Beadle
A jealous husband will go to any lengths to discover what his wife is really up to.
Another neophyte writing and directing effort and many of the same flaws as Demonella. A laboriously clichéd plot which can’t find a focus, rarely approaches any sense of credibility or normality and which functions largely by contrivance and coincidence. Even the usually excellent Peter Capaldi is reduced to furious mugging at the end. A soggy end to a maddeningly uneven but often brilliant run.

NOTE: In 1998, the team reunited for a one-off special. This was followed by two more over the next seven years.

S.1 Four Men In A Car 12 Apr 1998, C4 Sun 9.30pm (30 mins)
Written by Peter Richardson and Pete Richens. Directed by Peter Richardson
Featuring: Edmondson, French, Mayall, Planer, Richardson, Saunders
Four obnoxious salesman make a complete hash of a trip to Swindon for a conference.
A bracing return to form after a five year break. The plot is simple and clear, the characters are great and the jokes keep coming, although Richardson and Richens appeared to have borrowed a little of Bottom’s appetite for bodily fluids and horrific injury. Richardson himself, in a disastrous wig, is given the least to do, but Mayall, Edmondson and Planer seize their parts with tremendous vigour. French and Saunders seem stuck in at the end rather at random, and they only just get away with the “magic fairy” ending, but this is better by far than anything since Red Nose of Courage.

S.2 Four Men In A Plane 4 Jan 2000, C4 Tue 9pm (35 mins)
Written by Peter Richardson and Pete Richens. Directed by Peter Richardson
Featuring: Edmondson, Mayall, Planer, Richardson
Plus: Sean Hughes
The same four odious salesman fly to Africa and then charter a plane for a feasibility conference.
A slight stumble after the excellence of the previous film, but many of the same strengths are present – a simple plot, strong characters (although Richardson has entirely revised his and is in an even worse wig), and an arresting situation. Architects of their own destruction, if you can bear the company of these horrible men, you will enjoy watching them suffer. It’s a complete boys’ game though, female characters exist only to be slavered over by the men. Remember when the Comic Strip was standing up against sexist comedians?

S.3 Sex, Actually 2005, 28 Dec 2005, C4 9pm (45 mins)
Written by Peter Richardson and Pete Richens. Directed by Peter Richardson
Featuring: Mayall, Planer, Richardson
Plus: Robert Bathurst, Phil Cornwell, Rebecca Front, Tamer Hassan, Doon Mackichan, Sheridan Smith, Steve O’Donnell
In a typical suburban house, a meet-the-new-neighbours party threatens to reveal dark secrets.
Boring and confusing entry in the series. A quite unnecessary addition and with a completely nonsensical final reel. Mayall is in good form and Robert Bathurst is also a nice edition, but little things like story, jokes and motivation seem to have eluded Richardson this time around.

Part one is here.

SERIES 3

NOTE: “Series 3” is in fact three specials shown over a three year period, which also saw the production of two feature films. The new title sequence with a drawing of a village rather than a map makes its debut.

3.1 The Bullshitters: Roll out the Gunbarrel 3 Nov 1984, C4 Sat 11:00pm (50 mins)
Written by Peter Richardson & Keith Allen. Directed by Stephen Frears
Featuring Allen, Coltrane, Richardson
Plus: Alan Pellay, Fiona Hendley, Al Matthews, Malcolm Hardee, Elvis Costello
In a world where TV detectives solve real cases, Bonehead and Foyle reunite to solve a kidnapping armed only with tight Y-fronts and a sack of 10ps for the phone.
Bracingly original mix of drama school satire and TV spoof, with plenty of laugh-out-loud moments, but suffering from too many winks at camera (especially the ending). The names “Bonehead” and “Foyle” are dreary, sub-Mad Magazine placeholders and are typical of the occasional laziness which mars this entry.
NOTE: No “Comic Strip Presents” title sequence as Allen wanted to distance the film from the others in the sequence, but has all the hallmarks of one and led to a sequel (“Detectives on the Edge of a Nervous Breakdown”) which is unarguably a “Comic Strip” film. It is included on the C4 DVD box set.

F.1 The Supergrass 1985 Feature film. (103 mins)
Written by Peter Richardson & Pete Richens. Directed by Peter Richardson
Featuring Allen, Coltrane, French, Peacock, Planer, Richardson, Saunders, Sayle
Plus: Michael Elphick, Ronald Allen
Desperate to impress his girlfriend, Dennis boasts to his girlfriend that he is involved in a major drugs-smuggling operation. Before long, he has agreed to turn Queen’s evidence and finds himself in a hotel room with a beautiful police officer and her ex-boyfriend.
The story sustains itself admirably and the characters are well-drawn, but only Alexei Sayle’s motorcycle cop is really funny enough. Coltrane’s walk along the pier is staggering though and there are other pleasures along the way, such as the uniformly strong performances, with Saunders and Richardson in particular happily inside their comfort zones (which they aren’t always).

3.2 Consuela, or, The New Mrs Saunders 1 Jan 1986, C4 Wed 11pm (45 mins)
Written by Dawn French & Jennifer Saunders. Directed by Stephen Frears
Featuring Edmondson, French, Mayall, Richardson, Saunders,
Parody of “Rebecca” with Edmondson as the upper-class twit who prefers dogs to his new wife and French as the creepily ever-present Maid.
French’s preternatural ability to inhabit every aspect of Saunders’ life works beautifully, but it is often too close to the source to be really funny – an error which would be endlessly repeated in French and Saunders’ TV shows.

3.3 Private Enterprise 2 Jan 1986, C4 Thu 11pm (40 mins)
Written by Adrian Edmondson. Directed by Adrian Edmondson
Featuring Allen, Edmondson, French, Mayall, Planer, Richardson
Plus: Chris Langham, Roger Sloman, Malcolm Hardee, Simon Brint, Rowland Rivron
A delivery man on parole steals a demo tape from a recording studio and makes the band a huge success without them knowing.
After the hilarious highs of “Eddie Monsoon” and “Bad News”, Edmondson’s next stint as writer (and for the first time, director) is a bit flat with no real sense of jeopardy, especially in the last five minutes.

F.2 Eat The Rich 1987 Feature film (83 mins)
Written by Peter Richardson & Pete Richens. Directed by Peter Richardson
Featuring Nosher Powell, Alan Pellay, Ronald Allen
Plus appearances by Planer, Coltrane, Saunders, French, Miranda Richardson, Paul McCartney, Bill Wyman, Jools Holland
Not available on DVD, so I’m relying on my memory of watching it when it first came out, which is of a horrible muddle involving an androgynous waiter, Nosher Powell as the Home Secretary and a Solyent Green ending which was traded-on extensively in the publicity material and yet I fear is meant to be a shocking surprise.
NOTE: No “Comic Strip Presents” title sequence and its status is less clear, especially as it was not included in the DVD box set.

SERIES 4

NOTE: Richardson and Richens take a back seat but the one film they contribute is the jewel in the crown. As other would-be writers step up to the plate, and as the budget balloons, a regrettable tendency to self-indulgence begins to engulf the series. None of the Series 4 films come in at under an hour and most struggle to sustain their length.

4.1 The Strike 20 Feb 1988, C4 Sat 10.50pm (75 mins)
Written by Peter Richardson & Pete Richens. Directed by Peter Richardson & Pete Richens
Featuring Allen, Coltrane, Edmondson, French, Mayall, Peacock, Planer, Richardson, Saunders, Sayle
Plus: Ronald Allen
An earnest script-writer is horrified to see what Hollywood does to his screenplay depicting the miners’ strike.
The Comic Strip’s finest hour (and a quarter), the cross-cutting from finished movie to behind the scenes sustains brilliantly (far better than GLC), the cast all play multiple roles to perfection (Sayle again is stunning) and it’s genuinely funny all the way through. A triumph and well deserving of its acclaim and Montreux win.
NOTE: This episode won the Golden Rose and Press Award at the Montreux Festival

4.2 More Bad News 27 Feb 1988, C4 Sat 10.50pm (60 mins)
Written by Adrian Edmondson. Directed by Adrian Edmondson
Featuring Edmondson, French, Mayall, Planer, Richardson, Saunders
The worst heavy metal band in the world reunites at the behest of a documentary crew.
Limp rehash of Bad News redeemed by the insane Donnington sequence.

4.3 Mr Jolly Lives Next Door 5 Mar 1988, C4 Sat 10.50pm (60 mins)
Written by Adrian Edmondson and Rik Mayall & Roland Rivron. Directed by Stephen Frears
Featuring Edmondson, French, Mayall, Richardson, Saunders
Plus: Peter Cook, Nicholas Parsons, Thomas Wheatley
A pair of repellent male escorts, in a crazed pursuit of money to buy alcohol, intercept an instruction addressed to their neighbour to “take out Nicholas Parsons”. Not realising that this implies a hit, they take the place of a pair of competition winners who have won a night out with the family entertainer.
Lunatic precursor to “Bottom” which features all of their usual touchstones: light entertainment figureheads, lethal dipsomania and extraordinary violence. Stephen Frears keeps the pace up, Cook is hilarious – as is Parsons as himself – and the gags keep coming. If you have ever liked Mayall and Edmondson, you’ll adore Mr Jolly, but it won’t make any new converts.

4.4 The Yob 12 Mar 1988, C4 Sat 10.50pm (65 mins)
Written by Keith Allen & Daniel Peacock. Directed by Ian Emes
Featuring Allen, Edmondson, Richardson
Plus Gary Olsen, Malcolm Hardee
During an experiment, a yob switches brains with a pretentious pop video director.
Slick and glossy and boasting some good performances, but the one joke doesn’t sustain and it moves at a snail’s pace. It seems to be a pure expression of Allen’s hatred for both ends of the social spectrum and is consequently thoroughly off-putting as well as being very self indulgent and largely witless.

4.5 Didn’t You Kill My Brother? 19 Mar 1988, C4 Sat 10.50pm (65 mins)
Written by Alexei Sayle and Pauline Melville & David Stafford. Directed by Bob Spiers
Featuring Richardson, Sayle
Plus: Beryl Reid, Pauline Melville, Graham Crowden, Benjamin Zephaniah, Dexter Fletcher, Mmoloki Chrystie, Mark Wing-Davey
One of a pair of identical twins is released from prison, to find his gangland brother and mother waiting for him.
More self-indulgence, with Sayle constructing a pretty ropey framework for his own stand-up routines, and playing two roles himself – both fairly poorly. After his superb performance in “Strike”, this is a huge disappointment. Only Graham Crowden’s barking mad judge emerges unscathed.

4.6 Funseekers 26 Mar 1988, C4 Sat 10.50pm (60 mins)
Written by Doug Lucie & Nigel Planer. Directed by Baz Taylor
Featuring Allen, Planer, Richardson
Plus: Cathy Burke
A loser’s misadventures on an 18-30 holiday for which he is too old.
The southbound slide of the series continues with this utterly uninteresting entry, which again I couldn’t make it to the end of. Irretrievably boring after 10 minutes, I gave up after 30, fed-up of watching thinly-drawn characters annoy each other in unpleasant surroundings. What the hell is the Comic Strip doing aping “Duty Free”? Dire.